The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.
One of the main challenges faced by a coach of a college sports team lies in the recruiting of athletes to play on his team. Colleges typically recruit athletes from junior colleges and high schools. Each year, the pool of available athletes is large, and the time that a coach or his staff can devote to recruiting activities is limited. Some athletes are more talented than others, and a coach must try to recruit the most talented athletes that he can get in the short amount of time available to him. A good coach knows that other coaches will be competing for the most talented athletes as well.
As if the coach's job was not hard enough already, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) imposes on the recruiting process rules that complicate the coach's task even further. Among these rules is a rule that allows an athlete to be recruited only after the athlete has attended school for a specified number of semesters. Also among these rules is a rule that generally prohibits coaches and their representatives from initiating communication with an athlete or the athlete's relatives either in person or by telephonic or written communications. Although it is in a coach's best interests to play by the NCAA rules, the rules make it difficult for a coach to establish a relationship with an athlete that the coach wants to recruit.
An athlete could initiate communication with a coach, assuming that the athlete even knew the coach's contact information. However, a student athlete's time is limited too. A typical student athlete's life overflows with competing academic, athletic, and social concerns. Moreover, many student athletes lack sufficient confidence to contact coaches who might or might not be interested. Many student athletes are discouraged by the fear of rejection.
It is hard enough for a coach to discover talented athletes in the first place. Because statistics alone rarely tell the whole story, a coach usually will want to see an athlete in action before deciding whether to attempt to recruit that athlete. Due to time limitations, long distances, and travel expenses, many coaches are unable to watch more than a few athletes perform in person each season.
An athlete or high school may videotape their game or athletic performance and send that videotape to a coach via the mail or other package delivery service. Most athletes and high school coaches do not have the time or financial resources to make and distribute multiple copies of a videotape. Furthermore, such copies usually lack the visual quality that a coach needs in order to fairly evaluate an athlete's performance. Therefore, it is common for only one videotape per athlete to be in circulation among coaches at a time. When a coach is finished watching a videotape, the coach sends the videotape, again via the mail or other package delivery service, back to the athlete or high school coach for redistribution to another coach. As a result, a particular athlete's videotape might only be distributed to a few schools before the recruiting season is over. The videotape distribution approach described above limits both an athlete's chances of being recruited and the number of athletes that a coach can evaluate.
Based on the foregoing, an approach for facilitating relationships between athletes and coaches that does not suffer from limitations in prior approaches is highly desirable.